Clarifying the Nature and
Significance of Eugenio Pacelli's Pontificate

Giovanni Maria Vian

Defending Pius XII Rediscovering the historical
truth

Pius XII? A distant Pope whose features are either so faded as to be
no longer recognizable or, on the contrary, take on an overworked
outline because they have been distorted by a polemical representation
so bitter as to have obscured the historical reality.

This is the image of Eugenio Pacelli that prevails today, a man
elected to the See of Peter on the eve of the last World War. It was the
singular destiny of the first Pontiff to be born in Rome, who, on the
path opened to him by his Predecessor, became popular and wholly visible
throughout the world. This was thanks to the incipient, tumultuous age
of modernity, and also to the new means of communication, which the Pope
from Rome desired and knew how to utilize: from his repeated trips
— which took him to Europe and
America as a diplomat and as Secretary of State
— to the innovation of radio
messages; from the large public manifestations to the covers of
magazines; from the cinema to a form of media like television, at that
time just dawning and destined for great success.

His own was a destiny even more unique when one considers, then, the
authority for which he was generally recognized during his lifetime and
the almost unanimous positive judgments at the time of his death but a
half century ago in 1958.

How then, did this near destruction of his image come about, which
furthermore happened in the space of only a few years, more or less
beginning in 1963? There are two primary motives.

The first lies in the difficult political choices which Pius XII
made, from the start of his Pontificate, then during the tragedy of war
and finally at the time of the Cold War. The line taken by the Pope and
the Holy See throughout the years of conflict had always opposed
totalitarianism but was traditionally neutral, yet events show it
instead to have been in favour of the anti-Hitler alliance, and
characterized by an unprecedented humanitarian effort that saved a great
many lives. This policy was, however, anti-Communist, and for this
reason, already during the war, Soviet propaganda had begun to tag the
Pope as an accomplice of Nazism and its horrors.

The second reason was the accession of Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, his
Successor. Well before the Conclave, Roncalli had
— mainly due to his advanced age
— already been identified as a
candidate (and, once elected Pope) to be considered "transitional". But
very early on he was acclaimed as "the good Pope", and was always placed
without attenuation in contrast to his Predecessor: not only for his
radically different style and character, but also for his unexpected and
clamorous decision to convoke a Council.

The principal elements that explain the change in Pope Pius XII's
image, therefore, are his anti-Communist stance and his contraposition
with John XXIII. It was a comparison that became accentuated especially
after the latter's death and the election of Giovanni Battista Montini
(Paul VI), and also because it was furthered by the contrasting
polarization between conservatives and progressives at the time of the
Second Vatican Council, which were then transformed into opposing
symbols of the two late Popes. Meanwhile, in the relaunching of Soviet
and Communist accusations — repeated
insistently during the Cold War —
Rolf Hochhuth's play Der Stellvertreter (The Vicar) ended up
playing a decisive role. It was performed for the first time in Berlin
on 20 February 1963 and completely centred on the silence of the Pope,
depicting him as indifferent before the persecution and extermination of
the Jews.

In the face of the extension of this polemic in England, it was
Cardinal Montini — formerly
Pacelli's close collaborator — who
took up Pius XII's defence with a letter to The Tablet, a
Catholic magazine. The letter reached the press on the day of his
election to the Papacy, 21 June, and was also published in
L'Osservatore Romano on 29 June 1963.

"This attitude of condemnation and protest, for the absence of which
the Pope is being reproached, would not only have been futile, it would
also have been dangerous. That's all". Montini's closing words are stern
and carefully chosen: "Subjects like these and historic people we know
should not be played with through the creative imagination of
playwrights, who are lacking in historic discernment and, God help us,
human honesty. Otherwise, just like in the present case, the drama would
he another: that of someone trying to offload the horrible crimes of
German Nazism onto a Pope who was extremely conscientious in his duties
and aware of history, and who in the opinion of more than one friend was
certainly impartial; but also very loyal to the German people. Equally,
Pius XII had the merit of having been a 'Vicar' of Christ who tried to
fulfil his mission as best he could with courage and integrity. Could
the same thing be said of this theatrical injustice, in the context of
culture and art?".

As Pope, Montini would return several times to the topic of Pacelli,
whose work for peace and whose "venerable memory" he wished to defend.
He did just that on 5 June 1964 while taking his leave of the Israeli
President in Jerusalem, as the Cardinal Dean Eugène
Tisserant lit six lanterns in remembrance of thousands of exterminated
Jews within the shrine dedicated to victims of the Nazi persecution.
When "Paul VI set foot on Israeli ground, in what was the most
significant and 'revolutionary' step of his Palestinian mission,
everyone could tell that the Pope wanted to respond to the systematic
attacks from the communist world, which had managed to find complicity
or indulgence even in Catholic hearts", wrote Giovanni Spadolini in
Il Resto del Carlino (Bologna's daily newspaper) on 18 February
1965, following the first performances of Hochhuth's play in Rome and
the consequent heated debates.

To the lay historian, the role of communist propaganda in the
negative mythicizing of Pacelli was extremely clear, with the awareness
that his public image would almost disappear during the next decades. It
would be substituted by an exploitative and denigrating association of
the figure of Pius XII with the tragedy of the Shoah, in the face of
which he was depicted as either having remained silent or even been an
accomplice.

It was in this way that the issue of the Pope's silence became so
dominant, often being transformed into relentless polemics and provoking
only apologetic, defensive reactions, and thus rendering the solution to
a true historical problem more difficult to resolve. Interrogations and
accusations concerning Pius XII's silence and apparent indifference
before incipient tragedies and the horrors of war came, in fact, from
Catholics: such as those from Emmanuel Mounier, already in 1939, within
the first few weeks of the Pontificate, and later from Polish faithful
in exile.

Pacelli had questioned himself in regard to his approach, which was,
however, a conscious and anguished choice to attempt to save the
greatest possible number of human lives, rather than continually
denounce the evil being perpetrated, with the real risk of even greater
horrors. As Paul VI would further emphasize, according to whom Pius XII
reacted "in so far as the circumstances, gauged by him with intense and
conscientious reflection, permitted him to", to the extent that one
cannot "charge the Pope with cowardice, disinterest or selfishness, if
misfortunes without number and without measure devastate humanity. Who
might uphold the contrary would offend both justice and truth" (12 March
1964).

Pacelli was, in fact, "completely opposed to an attitude that would
consciously neglect to make a possible intervention, any time the
supreme values of the life and freedom of Man was in danger. Rather, in
concrete and difficult circumstances he always dared to attempt, to the
extent that he was capable, to prevent every inhumane or unjust act" (10
March 1974).

Thus, the interminable war waged on Pope Pacelli's silence ended in
obscuring the objective significance of an important Pontificate. One
that was, moreover, decisive in the transition
— from the tragedy of the last World
War into the chill of the Cold War and the difficulties of
reconstruction — into a new epoch.

This was, in a certain way, suggested in Cardinal Montini's
announcement of the death of the Pontiff to his diocese on to October
1958. "With him an era passes away; a story is completed. The clock of
the world has chimed an hour that is past". An age
— comprising the shocking, painful years of the war along with
those of the difficult post-war era —
whose real features one seeks to forget, together with those of the
defenceless Pope who faced these trials. Soon, too, his attentive and
efficient governance was forgotten, that had favoured an ever more
global Catholicism, his strong and innovative teaching that influenced
many an environment paving the way for the Second Vatican Council.
Indeed, Vatican II partly resumed his teaching, in the way it approached
modernity and its comprehension.

Moreover, the cause for his canonization was part of the
historiographical knot that had already been tied. Paul VI sought to
contribute to the solving of this difficulty when he arranged for the
Vatican Archives' publication of the thousands of Actes et documents
du Saint-Siege relatifs à la seconde
guerre mondiale in twelve volumes, beginning in 1965. Paul VI
announced the introduction of this cause, together with that of John
XXIII, at the Council. It was precisely the year that his two
Predecessors were almost being turned into symbols or banners of
opposite tendencies within Catholicism. Paul VI attempted to contest the
contraposition of his two Predecessors and the consequent exploitative
use of their two figures.

Half a century from the death of Pius XII (9 October 1958) and 70
years from his election (2 March 1939), it seems that a new
historiographical consensus has formed as to the historical significance
of the figure and Pontificate of Eugenio Pacelli, the last Pope of Roman
origin. In recognition of this, L'Osservatore Romano has
published a series of texts and historical and theological
contributions, Jewish and Catholic, here revised and compiled with
interventions by Benedict XVI and his Secretary of State, Cardinal
Tarcisio Bertone. In his analysis of Pius XII's case, Paolo Mieli
demonstrates the inconsistencies in the "black legend", and states his
conviction that it is precisely historians who will recognize the
importance and greatness of Pacelli. Andrea Riccardi summarizes the
formation and career of the future Pope and reconstructs the meaning of
his Pontificate, while Rino Fisichella sheds light on the sensibility of
Pius XII's theological teaching in the face of modernity and its effect
on successive Catholicism. And from the Pope's Discourses, Gianfranco
Ravasi draws out his cultural world.

Posthumously, the harrowing evocation of Saul Israel
— written in the time of the
devastating storm that shook the Jewish people, in the fragile shelter
of a convent in Rome — expresses the
most profound reality of the nearness and friendship between Jews and
Christians. But above all, it illustrates the faith in the one Lord who
blesses and protects everyone, "under his wings where life had no
beginning and will have no end".

Taken from:
L'Osservatore Romano
Weekly Edition in English
1 April 2009, page 9

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